Wedding Night
by Red Snowsled
Summary: A fluffy oneshotJane and Mr. Rochester after their wedding. Nothing explicit or vulgar :


"It is achieved!" I said triumphantly, smiling. The carriage wheels hummed gently below. My husband's hands were sliding their way into my lap for my fingers.

"Achieved? What a word!"

"What do you find in 'achieved,' sir?"

"Hmph!" he exclaimed. "As to that 'sir' business, I'll chastise you for that with a kiss-" (he paused his rhetoric to kiss me in a rather savage manner) "-and as for 'achieved,' it makes me think of lessons and lectures. I _achieve_ good marks, I _achieve _knowledge and reputation. It makes me think marriage as a scholarly occupation. 'Yes, professor, to that question I must say that in this case love is to be chequed, should I want reason. Unless, of course, it is my wife's will. To me, holy God's will must be synonymous with my wife's.'"

"You are blasphemous, sir," I laughed.

" 'Sir,' again! I rather think Dante must put you with the portly fellows of the third ring of the Inferno, for you seem to be a glutton for my penalties," he said. Another kiss, a few traces below my ear, upon my neck, sent shivers of pleasure that were shocking and new. "At any rate, if achievement is in order, I feel it may be necessary to return to Cambridge to secure my Master's of Matrimony."

"If you are apart from me for a fortnight, I shall feel as though in the Inferno," I claimed. "Judicious Minos shall place me with the Sullen."

My rhetoric was apparently lacking in wit at this moment, for he was rather elsewhere engaged. Namely with my lips. His focused attention provided him with care and sensitivity. Reader, what strength might I have against such gentle expressions to love?

"Dearest elf. Dearest Janet," he whispered.

Our wedding carriage arrived at Thornfield.

Even the pacifying effects of a full, turkey, wedding meal could not quell my nervousness for the night ahead. I was going to a place that Gulliver had not described in his travels, the most forbidden conversation topic in my society, such a closely guarded secret that I did not know what to make of it.

It was both stressful and soothing that my new husband had experience in these matters. His experience was abundantly thorough; and though he did not boast happily of his exploits, he had made them no secret. I was vexed in that perhaps I was somewhat ill-equipped or ill-suited to conjugal union, or some aspect of myself would be lacking to his satisfaction. I had no way to judge myself—in the mirror I saw a plain girl, but one might only look at the broad spectrum of cultures, incomes, and people to know that the ugly were as equally capable of reproduction as the beautiful. But perhaps he might guide me in this matter. Clearly, for its mysterious nature, it was not something that a professor dictated from a book for a pupil to note, or something standoffishly dealt with in a laboratory of natural sciences. But I had some more confidence in his wisdom than in a fumbling green lad of my own age.

I had finished removing my wedding gown and replaced it with my nightgown. I sat combing my hair at my toilette by the lowlight of three candles when the expected knock at my chamber door sounded.

I stood to answer it and opened it a crack.

"Yes?"

"It is George," said my husband. "Does Mrs. Rochester require anything?" His blind, dark eye connected with mine in a curious yet mischievous way.

"I require that you go away, George. I am anticipating my husband and demand excessive privacy." I did not open my door for him quite yet. His fingers ran along the door's edge.

"I am here, my love," he said, his fingers brushing mine and caressing them.

"Oh? Is there something you want, sir?" I asked most affably and indifferently, trying to put myself at ease. "You realize that this is a most unorthodox time for discussion."

"I see, witch, that you are very wicked and have resisted all my endeavors for your correction. No longer am I 'sir' to you, and from tonight you shall nevermore forget it."

Whether he or I opened the door and closed it again is lost to time, but quickly there was no barrier between us. His hand raked the hair above the back of my neck, massaging and holding gently as he had his soft way with my lips, my cheek and ears. A sigh of contentment issues forth from within my chest. Less reserve there was before we were married—there was no twinge of guilt here, but there was also the lack of certainty that there was an ending point to these explorations of ecstasy. He pressed me to himself more vigorously than he ever had. My fears were faintly aroused. I pulled back slightly.

"Jane, what is it?" he asked. He kissed my cheek reassuringly and with a bitter tone asked, "Has my repulsiveness finally been realized by you?"

"Nothing about you or this…endeavor…is repulsive to me," I said carefully. "Nothing but my own hesitancy and nervousness."

"Ah! Forgive me, a thousand pardons, forgive me," he asked. Quickly his hands dropped from my face to my hands, holding them tightly. Each squeeze sent waves of comfort through me. I do not know if I had ever been so in tune with my body's ability to sense. "I have no desire to even think of past women, tonight or ever, but none were so innocent as you—this is a jigthey had danced many times before I became their partner. I forget you know not the steps."

"Then you must teach me, lest I fall."

"Impossible," he said, passion renewed, clasping me to him again. His sightless eyes were buried in my hair. "Thou fairy, you are saved by your singular wonders of flight. You will never fall."

I took liberty to kiss his lips and touch his shoulders, squeezing them slightly, still unaware of how to do what he expected of me. I was surprised though not displeased by his quick removal of the white nightshirt he was wearing. His chest was as robust as ever and I studied it carefully. The scars were more than I had seen on his face—the burns of the fateful Thornfield fire had slid down from the right shoulder all the way down to his navel.

"Do you look at me, Jane?" he asked. Now his voice was nervous. "I would bid you not look so closely if I loved you less. What do you think? Is a divorce in order? Could you love these disfigurations?"

"Divorce is now the gravest of oaths and curse words in our home," I said, kissing him pertly on the lips. "Mention it again and I may send every child we shall have together away to school, lest they be infected by your vulgarity."

He was silent a moment, looking (if could say so) away. I was afraid of having said something wrong.

"I am sorry, I did not mean to bring the subject of children to light so early in our marriage. If you are not inclined to have them, I will not speak of them or importune you-"

"Ha, ha! No, dearest Jane," said Mr. Rochester, laughing gleefully, kissing me again. "Who gave me this sweetest enchantress? She sees before her a beast and yet still endeavors to be his companion and mother of his children."

"I think a certain silence is in order," I said liberally. I petted his hair affectionately. "If we say anymore, your self-deprecating statements and wavering confidence will cheat me out of my wedding night. Instruct. I believe it was Francis Bacon who once 'preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.'"

"You are wrong, Mrs. Rochester. It was Francis of Assisi. But he was quite right. 'The rest is silence.'"

He set about his mischief. He came over me with is arms, holding my back, kissing me with considerable power. As my lips became more raw, he lowered his own to my chest. He pulled me toward him, and himself toward my bed.

He then most sensitively kissed my brow, my cheek, and I barely noticed the soft cloth of nightgown being pulled gently over my head and falling to the floor.

Then I felt the cold—the embarrassment of my nude, puny body—and I had a cruel pleasure in knowing he could not see me or see just how deficient I truly was. He had had French opera singers, Creole fantasies, German courtesans, veritable modern Helens! What was I, a ridiculously plain girl of nineteen, doing before this man of the world?

His hand upon my cheek, the hotness of my embarrassment and my flush did not go unnoticed. He touched my face gently as though to take it out of my face. I was afraid he'd say something, break his silence. Words could not cure me now. But he did not say anything, only pressed us breast to breast.

He breathed several sighs of satisfaction, placing his chin upon my head. I lay my cheek upon his muscled shoulder, comforted by this absolute trust, this final acceptance of who we were, materially, spiritually and everything else. We were of one heart, one mind before, but now become of one flesh.

As he drew himself out of the still reverie, he began again as he had in the first—with energetic affection. I felt us reach an odd sort of equilibrium—his vitality was that of a man ten years younger, while my deportment was that of a woman ten years older. Who we were together was something so symbiotic that it transcended years and time. I loved him, Reader. What is love, but this absolute unity?

My eyes unclosed to a morning scene not unlike that I had imagined while reading Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_—the newlyweds waking to the sound of the lark from an open window with the light saffron light streaming upon the white bed, our little world within the world.

I leant my back against the headboard, sitting up. I cast my head back to look at the ceiling, to feel what my body was feeling. I still felt the soreness of this novelty, and my knee grazed the dry, blood-crusted spot on the white sheet. The air was cool, but my skin was warmed by the sun.

And there was my husband, spent and sated, reposing cheerfully, his head upon his pillow and his lips smiling in a dream. His broad, bare shoulders were emerged from under the blanket and his arms supported his head while he lied on his stomach.

I was sure what had transpired the night before had affected me more profoundly than him. This newness, this final surrender—loving and being loved changed the world for me. I loved my independence. Marriage both stole it and reinforced it. I was slave and mistress at once. I was freer because I was no longer bound to the search for happiness, for I was free to bask in it; however, this union of hearts forbade ever that I should stray a way uniquely my own. For some rather materialistic points, my status under the common law claimed me dead or nonexistent, and everything I had belonged to my husband (although he would never deny me anything I truly desired or that was my own in right); but now I had greater leverage in this society, having not only become a married woman but very well-off married woman.

The thought was much more troubling than comforting. Edward would never parade me like a Parisian poodle to his acquaintances or push me into awkward situations, even if he had felt at ease himself in them. But the visions of the fine ladies that had come to Thornfield had come to my mind more than once and I was afraid of the expectation that I should conform my behavior and mannerisms to their own.

Looking upon my husband's face chased all these petty concerns away. He was serenity and sweetness—I couldn't have found a better docility in a napping Pilot—and some deep caring and responsibility for this man washed over me most profoundly.

Enough; I touched my cold fingers to his leathery skin. It was another reminder of our difference in age—my dewy skin might still be pocked with youthful pustules and pimples if my _peau_ were of that variety, while his was perhaps a decade or two away from wrinkling. It was rough to the touch, but so interesting I did not stop. His burn scars, however, were somewhat soft and I touched them as well.

"Evidently I am still dreaming, Mrs. Rochester. I dreamt that we were upon that fated frigate with Coolridge's Ancient Mariner in the frigid Arctic—your hands were caressing an iceberg before I felt them touch my back."

"Good morning, husband," I said as he rolled over to face me, although his eyes wandered somewhere to my right. I touched his chin and jawbone lightly, turning his face and eyes slowly to mine.

"Good morning, wife." My hair fell around his face as I gave him a kiss. His hands went to the nape of my neck, then down to my shoulders in urgency.

"What the deuce is this, Jane? Have you, my twenty-hour's wife, already been unfaithful to me with an iceberg? Your entire body emanates winter. Get you under these blankets, quickly."

I obeyed cheerfully as he wrapped my section of the blanket close to my breast, and pressed my back to him—the warmth was pleasant and quickly spread as he rubbed my arms attentively.


End file.
